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Technique - Daryl D'Souza

• Ian Richardson

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Daryl D'Souza, Co-Founder of Technique

In this episode of the WIN podcast, host Carrie Richardson sits down with Daryl D’Souza, managing partner at Technique, a managed IT services provider based in Toronto, Canada.

Daryl shares his unique approach to signing two to three new clients monthly while working only two to three hours a day.

He discusses the importance of providing free value, building trust, and leveraging LinkedIn automation tools and Loom videos to connect with prospects.

Daryl also delves into the challenges and rewards of focusing on business outcomes rather than just tech stacks, his plans for expanding Technique, and maintaining a work-life balance.

He provides actionable insights on the importance of defining company values, recruitment strategies, and ensuring a seamless client onboarding process.

Tune in to WIN and try Daryl's process in your own business!

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:21 Daryl's Unique Client Acquisition Strategy

01:42 The Importance of Providing Value

02:35 Leveraging Tools for Efficiency

03:48 Building Trust and Relationships

06:00 Challenges and Adaptations

10:27 Future Plans and Business Growth

20:21 Recruitment and Company Culture

23:28 Conclusion and Final Thoughts


Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?

Serial entrepreneurs, life partners and business partners, they have successfully exited from multiple businesses (IT, call center, real estate, marketing) and they help other business owners create their own versions of success.

Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.

Carrie has helped create and execute successful outbound sales strategies for over 1200 technology-focused businesses including MSPs, manufacturers, distributors and SaaS firms.

Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com
Book time with either of them here: https://randr.consulting/connect

Be a guest on WIN! We host successful entrepreneurs who share advice with other entrepreneurs on how to build, grow or sell a business using examples from their own experience.

Carrie Richardson:

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Carrie Richardson, and I am the host of WIN. With me today is Daryl D'Souza, who's the managing partner at Technique, a managed IT services provider based in Toronto, Canada. How are you doing today, Daryl?

Daryl D'Souza:

Good, Carrie. Thanks for having me.

Carrie Richardson:

Oh, it's a pleasure. I think that people are going to be very excited to listen to your story today. So what piqued my interest most about talking to Daryl today was he mentioned that he was able to sign two or three new clients every month for his managed IT services provider, working only two or three hours a day. And he is willing to share that process and technique with us today. Daryl, the floor is yours. Tell us how you're doing this.

Daryl D'Souza:

As I mentioned earlier our industry, there's no shortage of tools. There's no shortage of vendors preaching what to do, what tech stack to sell, what's, what's coming, the FOMO of cybersecurity and whatnot. And I think a lot of MSPs are stuck into that mentality. When I truly dissected everything a couple of years ago and realize the important value for an organization today is mostly how they can grow their business by leveraging technology, not necessarily tied to a tool stack or a tech stack. I think that's the underlying or main important factor to note, right? Once you embrace that mindset and remove the hustle mindset a bit knowing that every call. It's not a financial transaction. When you hop on the call, it's not about, Hey, what can I sell Carrie today? What contract term can I sell Carrie a 2, 5, 3 years term? What's the average seat count? There's a lot of gurus out there that say, Hey, you got to be at 5, 6, 700 a seat. Sure that works to a certain extent, I believe, but when you truly come down to actually providing value for free for the customers, right? And. I'll go into how I do that in a couple of minutes here. I think that's the underlying factor where you truly build trust and credibility. Once you have that, at the end of the day, there's a saying that people buy from people buy from human beings, however you want to look at it. That really comes into play. So coming down to what our process looks like today. First of all, we don't have a sales team. You are talking to the sales team. Me, myself and I, right? I have been blessed with a great, fantastic team. We're about 10 people that always have my back on the service delivery side alongside my partner Chi who takes care of the service delivery aspect of running an MSP, which can be pretty, pretty, hectic at times. Okay. This allows me to focus on truly delivering this value. So every day I leverage tools, LinkedIn automation tools. I leverage copilot AI that basically reaches out to my ideal client profile that I have set forward in sales navigator, LinkedIn sales navigator in the greater Toronto area. And that basically doesn't sell the messaging is really not to sell Someone something the messaging is not to say, Hey, I'm Daryl from technique. We are an IT. We've been doing this for 10 years. We got the best people and whatnot, especially in this unregulated industry. I don't think that goes a long way anymore. The idea is really to find the low hanging fruit. So if you have a prospect that has a simple example would be for the past couple of months, we've been targeting prospects that don't have a demarked record set up. Now, most prospects don't even know what a demarked record is or what it does, what the impacts are. So I actually take the time to carve out, 10 15 minutes per prospect, create a Loom video, send a link to the Loom video and say, Hey, Kerry nice to meet you. Notice that your DomainCrucial. com doesn't have a DMARC record. This is why you should have a DMARC record. And if you want to do it, this video walks you right through it, right? So I take the time to research who your domain registrar is.

Carrie Richardson:

They're obviously curious enough to engage with you. How does the messaging go?

Daryl D'Souza:

So this is over a couple of messages. There's not a long message on LinkedIn. First of all, I explain, what a DMARC does and from a non technical standpoint, how they could spoof your email address, for example, right? Why that's important. 99 percent of cyber attacks today are initiated through a business email compromise. Not my stat, found it somewhere. Don't remember from where, but once they understand what that is and I show them, you Because I take the time to go and see who with your domain registrar is and I cater that loom video to that specific domain registrar to log in, go in, click this, do this nine out of the 10 times, the process will come back and say, Hey, listen, I don't know what I'm doing, especially the non techie ones. Can we hop on a call and say, sure, let's hop on a call and actually jump on the call. We screen share and we do it. My goal at that time is not to say, Hey, listen, I got on a call with you for half hour, 45 minutes. This is what we charge per hour. This is what we do. Sell our managed services, sell this, sell that, none of that. I don't even talk about anything of that shape or form unless they ask me. So what does your company do? What can you do for us? That's when I start. Asking questions about, hey, where are you guys today from a business perspective? Where do you see yourself? Where do you see a business grow in the next 3, 5, 7 years? And how do you think you can leverage technology to accelerate that growth for you? Only then will I come back with a technology action plan. That's not typical from what any MSP would provide, because everything we talk about is non technical. It's tied directly tied to business outcomes. And based on that, they feel more comfortable. And then we discuss what the investment looks like.

Carrie Richardson:

I like that. You call it an investment.

Daryl D'Souza:

Thank you. Thank you. Because it is an investment, right? At the end of the day, if you want to get somewhere, it is definitely an investment of time or monetary value. But at the end of the day, definitely is an investment

Carrie Richardson:

when Ian is teaching people how to conduct a closing meeting, he always says you ask if they can fund that investment versus can you afford this?

Daryl D'Souza:

Yes, that's huge. That goes a long way.

Carrie Richardson:

So how did you learn about copilot to begin with? How did it come across your radar?

Daryl D'Souza:

I'm always looking for tools that improves our business operational efficiency, whether it's on the sales side or the service delivery side. And this was just me Googling around and searching for tools. There's a bunch of tools out there, from Cleverly to Zopto and a whole bunch of tools, but Copilot worked and that's the path we chose.

Carrie Richardson:

And was it a big learning curve or did you just sit down and play with it for a few hours? How did you get to the point where you were able to create a process that allowed you to eliminate so much noise from your day?

Daryl D'Souza:

So it took time. Was it easy to use a tool? If you're a tech savvy person you can figure it out. It's basic if, and then statements, I think you drag and drop builder craft out messaging. Of course, now it's a lot easier leveraging AI to craft out, messages or whatnot. You just got to be super, super careful. I think by not using the default messages, you really want to cater to the user. The messages to what your company beliefs are values are right for us. It's not about selling anything on any call. So we really crafted it took. It took us probably a couple of months, maybe a couple of quarters initially to find tweak that messaging. And secondly, we focus on one specific niche, right? So once you focus on a specific niche, where they hang out, where that community what their pitfalls, what their challenges are and what they need assistance with. So it really gives you that ammo to go in and include those pitfalls or challenges in your messaging as triggers to get someone's attention.

Carrie Richardson:

It's important for people listening today to understand that you can't just buy a tool and cut seven hours out of your workday, you're gonna have to learn how to use it. You're gonna have to learn some other hacks. You're not using copilot alone. You're also using loom to record videos. So there's a couple of different. Things you'll have to learn how to use. It'll take you a few quarters to get the hang of things based on. It took Daryl a couple of quarters. It might take you a couple of quarters or a couple more quarters, depending on your level of comfort working with. I think the technology isn't the difficult part. I think the difficult part is what we're doing right now, which is like, how do I become comfortable talking to nobody, creating a loom video that someone may watch, may not watch. You don't know anything about them. You don't really understand their sense of humor. And you've got to be almost palatable to every person you interact with. In your target client profile,

Daryl D'Souza:

not only that I think the most important and most challenging part and this was a challenge for me initially when I first started is how to give value for absolutely free and not expecting anything in return.

Carrie Richardson:

Your peers think that you should be selling the identical stack to everybody that you interact with and charging as much as humanly possible and doing nothing for free.

Daryl D'Souza:

100%. I'll tell you, there's been prospects that I've been helping for over a year. Micro calls, 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there. Free advice. Yeah, no problem. Until I got them onto our managed program. That is that's going to be the very challenging and difficult part for you to actually sit back and do it for me. Like I said earlier, Carrie, I'm super grateful that I've been able to do this because I have a team that takes care of. All the customer support issues, the technical issues and my partner, Chi, overseeing that so for me, it's really, I got all the time of the day.

Carrie Richardson:

You told me that you have a new baby at home.

Daryl D'Souza:

I do. I do. I do. I do. But, what we're trying to get at is when I get on a call or prospect, the goal is just to have a conversation, right? If I can help that person, that individual, that organization, great. And if there's any time. monetary or financial value attached to it. Fantastic. And if there isn't, that's okay as well. I just made a new friend, a new connection, right? So that's the way I look at it. And it's very difficult when you look at it at that angle, it's not easy to adapt that.

Carrie Richardson:

It's also really hard to have a bad day when your only goal is trying to interact with interesting people who are doing cool stuff. That's what I've always liked about prospecting. Yeah, I really enjoy having conversations like this. Oh, how are you doing that? What does that mean? And how did you find it? And, what are you going to do next? How do you add on to the success that you're having right now? We talked a little bit about what your next steps will be. So you're going to go from owner led sales to a team of people that you're now going to have to educate on this great process that you built internally. Sounds like you documented it really well. So you'll be able to train it very well. What does that look like a year from now for technique?

Daryl D'Souza:

So from, both she and I, we were working on our macro plan is within 3 years, get to a point where we're both completely not engaged in the business at all. Whether it's from a sale side or service delivery side, a customer relationship side, that's going to take some time. Today. We're both able to do that to a certain extent because of the fantastic team and the culture that were built. We're trying to extend that to the sales side as well. So for the past year, we've been working hard on, increasing our operational efficiency, trying to build that great culture and we haven't done a lot of active client acquisition

Carrie Richardson:

any time that we had to, Take a step back and fix something. It made me crazy because the phone starts to ring and I have to say no, and I never want to say no. So what was the year where you had to like really drill down into service delivery, like for you as the sales partner in the business?

Daryl D'Souza:

It was the past year, so we're coming up to a year 11 months now. So it was from last October when we merged and launched technique. We said, no, we're not accepting any new clients. We did a couple of clients here and there that fit our values that fit our methodology. So yes, but not actively Getting new clients for the past 11 12 months. We're going to start up in October and we're planning on getting to SDRs that follow the same sequence that I've documented. Leveraging copilot and automation probably had a, a follow up the call sequence, follow up and truly digging in on that. But we're looking at, building a team offshore. We have a few members that work out of the Philippines for us today on the service delivery side of things. So we're looking at extending that angle as well and see how we can we can build this out.

Carrie Richardson:

So how will you integrate the sales success that you've been able to achieve? If you're able to replicate that with 2 more people. That's going to have a serious impact on your service delivery side. What is the process look like for the handoff from deal to onboard?

Daryl D'Souza:

We have a dedicated service coordinators today that walk through that transition from A client acquisition to onboarding a typical onboarding is a 30 day experience, which we're very straightforward in the beginning of our process. The customers are well aware of what that looks like and what that commitment looks like, because it's a commitment on both sides. In fact, 1 of our newly onboarded customers today that we're working on. Their onboarding experience was extended by, a month and a half to 2 months, but they were well aware of that because of the time required on the client side as well as our side to make sure that we can get all our I's dotted and T's crossed besides that service coordinator that we have, we're looking at ramping the service delivery side of the house as well. We automate a lot on the service delivery side of things There's no shortage of tools in our industry. So you got to pick your poison, figure out what works try to build automation to it and stick to your guns, right? You can be switching tools every now and then. What's the new RMM? What's the new PSA? Whatever it is that you're stuck in the MSP world. There's always tools coming out. That's not to say we don't review new tools. We do once a year, but we have our automations in place. And, we're actively also looking for that right fit as we call them tech ops engineers, or, they do pretty much our help desk, our projects, they're aligned to a client. And invest in their continuing education as well from a technical front. So it has to all go hand in hand. And that's what we've been working on for the past 11 months from a ratio. I know industry loves metrics. I don't know where I saw this metric again, but it was a 250 end points to a technician. Right now we're about, with the automation and everything in place, we're about 200 endpoints an engineer, but we modify that a bit. So we don't just allocate one engineer to a client. Everyone knows all our clients. So everyone on our team, we take turns every Friday, we call it Kahoot days. So you guys know what Kahoot is. It's a, it's, those the platform that you can create interactive games or quizzes with your team. So we have Kahoot days and. There are times where once we onboard a customer, we make a kahoot game out of it. So that our team members really understand and know the business for each of our clients. If someone's on break or is busy doing a project, someone else can step in and adapt to it as well.

Carrie Richardson:

So you've got, you're not getting the I want Larry. Where's Larry? Why isn't Larry at work today? Larry's my guy. I got to talk to Larry. Larry's the only one gets us here.

Daryl D'Souza:

None of that. Every client has they know how to engage support. You want to call in? That's great. You want to open up a ticket through the system tray icon. That's great. You want to email? That's great. Whatever tickles your fantasy. That's great. But you're not tied to a specific engineer per se, right? Everyone, every one of our clients understand that. Hey, everyone on our team is capable of delivering that service. And if they're not, then they'll find someone who is capable, learn the process as well. So next time around, it's smooth sailing as well.

Carrie Richardson:

Now, one of the things that you mentioned when we were talking was that you don't force a specific standardized stack onto your clients, you allow them to select. How they're going to be supported, or what tools they're going to use in their business. Is it more challenging to train a technical team to have to support multiple processes systems?

Daryl D'Souza:

Sure is. It definitely is. But if you really look at the gist of it, most clients that we support, especially the 5 to 50 space, right? We're talking about a messaging and collaboration. Are you a Microsoft fan? Are you Google Workspace fan? So all our engineers go through that training process of learning the baseline fundamentals. And of course, for the niche that we're in, there are certain third party line of business applications that we're familiar with as well. That's irrelevant in terms of what it is, because we work closely with the vendors. There, there are certain times where, there will be a different angle of attacking a particular problem, but they're well versed with it and continuously adapt to it.

Carrie Richardson:

It's exciting. Where do you anticipate you'll be in 1 year and 5 years based on your current trajectory and your plans for business growth?

Daryl D'Souza:

Right now, we're looking at expanding to the Middle East. That's on our short term trajectory over the next 12 to 16 months. That's going to be super exciting to see how we adapt there. It's a completely different ballgame than North America. It's not transactional, cold calling is frowned upon. It's all about meeting in person building relationships networking. So I'm super excited for that. In the 5 year plan is Is really to get a really streamlined or lifestyle business where Chi and I are completely off hands and we could do something else and just peek in as needed.

Carrie Richardson:

Living the dream.

Daryl D'Souza:

Yeah. Yeah.

Carrie Richardson:

One thing I did want to ask you was how do you prefer that vendors interact with you? You've mastered a really interesting way of approaching prospects. What is your preferred way to be reached? If a vendor wants to do business with you, what do you want them doing?

Daryl D'Souza:

So I don't mind cold calls, but if it's a cold call that is. Number 1 all about selling right out of the gate. I'm not gonna be happy camper. Like most people would be. I always prefer LinkedIn conversations connecting to their trying to understand what the vision, the story behind that firm's all about Seeing if it's a good fit and then setting up a discovery call and going from there, right? Always love networking events, like especially in person events I think are coming to an all time high now since COVID. Love meeting people in person always or hopping on a call like a virtual Zoom, Teams, whatever your flavor of the stack is love doing that as well.

Carrie Richardson:

Excellent. And any advice for other MSPs on how they might replicate some of your success?

Daryl D'Souza:

So it all comes down to first, I think understanding and see what you value as an individual and what your organization values, right? Once you have that in place and you build a solid baseline of, okay we talked about a wholly successful life earlier, Carrie, right? For me today both she and I, we are aligned with that. And so is our team. So whether it's looking at your health first your religious beliefs, having enough time to spend time with your family. Sure. Go ahead and do that. Not a problem at all. So once you realize what that looks like, then you define and carve out a business plan in terms of the ideal client should be right. And how you want to support them. What are your. In scope versus out scope. What will you do? What will you not do? And most importantly, define that line of what you're not willing to compromise no matter what. I know we briefly spoke about this earlier was how we turned down a 2, 000, 000 plus deal just because that client wasn't a good fit for us. Sure. Did it hurt? Yeah, it's 2, 000, 000, right? It didn't fit, which means that it's going to change the team's morale. It's going to change our company culture. It's going to change everything and it's going to, it's not going to be fun. So I'd rather take the hit now, and find like minded businesses that, that fit our our values and our culture first, and then go that way. So I think that's super, super important to look at before worrying about, Hey, what your three plans are, what are you going to sell or whatnot?

Carrie Richardson:

And how do you vet potential employees to make sure that they're aligned? With that wholly successful life value.

Daryl D'Souza:

So we have changed the way we recruit today. I'd rather hire someone with no technical experience at all and ramp up, but they have the right attitude. Then someone who's a senior engineer and is going to change the culture of our company overnight. So we made disc assessments very important in our recruitment process. We use test gorilla extensively. Before we even have a call, we send. To assessments via test gorilla, which is a culture fit assessment and a technical assessment based on that. Then we'll go ahead and schedule that introductory call with that. She and myself to understand what they're trying to do with what their career goals are, how it maps into the roles that we're looking to hire from there. We invite them for an in person half a day. Paid engagement at our firm. We could be virtual or in person really depends on where they are in the greater Toronto area. And we basically pair them up with an engineer to do technical work, not hands on work, but just bore their brains or steal their brains for the 4 hours. Right? After all that, and we're all happy with it. The most critical part of it is. We obviously meet up and have lunch with them, understand what their personal lives are about, learn about their family values and so on and so forth. Get them to do a disc assessment and then finally get them on board. If you're looking for a tech ops engineer or a help desk engineer, you're looking at someone with high SEs, right? So you want to make sure they have that. But we heavily rely on this process a lot longer. Especially since we're a nimble firm, we don't have a dedicated HR or recruitment or training division, but I think that goes a long way if you're able to do this and find that right fit individual. And I keep in mind, you're never going to find that right fit individual forever because priorities change, right? Some individual, whether it's family, marriage, education, whatever it is, priorities change. So you got to be, you got to be really understanding and have an open set of eyes and ears to seeing what your employees want in their life and able to propel them towards that and support them while at the same time making sure that they hit your eyes, you dot your I's and T's with that roles and responsibility for that specific function.

Carrie Richardson:

So are you finding people that will be good core value fits and then figuring out where to place them in the organization, or do you have a job order that's open and you go looking for somebody that you're going to be able to train up to take that position?

Daryl D'Souza:

Both. I think it depends on. On where we're at, right? So far expansion, the Middle East we're looking at both. We're looking at individuals that are willing to adapt and learn the business and upskill themselves. And at the same time, we're always looking at keeping an open roster of individuals are talented individuals that want to be in the technology space that want to, learn a specific or go into a specific line of business within technology and see how we can empower them. Get there.

Carrie Richardson:

That's great. I really appreciate you joining us today on WIN. There's some great takeaways there and I hope people can take them and apply them to their own business and experience some of the work life balance that you seem to be enjoying very much right now.

Daryl D'Souza:

Thanks for having me on this podcast, Carrie. I appreciate it. Super grateful.

Carrie Richardson:

It was a real pleasure. Thanks so much.

Daryl D'Souza:

You're welcome.

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Carrie Richardson

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Ian Richardson

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